There has conventionally been known a technology (mail magazine or the like) for delivering news articles and information, which are recorded on a server in an information processing system, to a plurality of clients. Here, as a message to be delivered, it is desirable to be able to deliver message contents which are interesting for users and are responding to high needs of users.
For that purpose, there is known a method that a user receiving the message registers in advance a category regarding message contents that the user wants to receive, on the server for delivering the messages. In other words, there is known a method of delivering only information falling under the category having been registered in advance, to this user as delivery messages. For example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-295804.
However, according to the method of Kokai, if the user registers many categories, many messages may be delivered to the user according to the number of registrations thereof. On the contrary, if the registered category is reduced in number, there may arise a possibility that the information that the user wants to obtain may not sufficiently be delivered. In practice, since there may be a case in which it may be delicately difficult to determine under which category the contents of the information to be delivered may fall, there may arise a case where enough information to satisfy the user cannot be provided as delivery messages, by depending only on the category for determining whether or not the message should be delivered.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method, a system and a program product for delivering on-target messages needed for a user, without omissions.
To achieve the objectives, there is provided a method for delivering a plurality of delivery messages in a delivery message database to one or more clients, comprising the steps of: delivering one or more delivery messages for a first delivery which are extracted from the delivery message database to at least one of the one or more clients, monitoring reading statuses of the one or more delivery messages for the first delivery, generating correlation data indicating correlations between the plurality of delivery messages based on a result of monitoring the reading statuses, and delivering one or more delivery messages for a second delivery which are not included in the one or more delivery messages for a first delivery and are extracted from the delivery message database based on the correlation data.
Preferably, at least one of the plurality of delivery messages in the delivery message database has an expiration date, and the step of delivering one or more delivery messages included in a second delivery group comprises a step of delivering the one or more delivery messages included in a second delivery group on condition that such one or more delivery messages are within the expiration date.
Preferably, the delivery messages for first delivery are delivered as address locations of texts of the delivery messages and the reading statuses are monitored by counting the number of accesses from the one or more clients to the address locations or the texts of the delivery messages.
The present invention has been explained as a method for delivering a plurality of delivery messages in a delivery message database to one or more clients. The present invention can also be understood to be a server, a program or a program product. The program product can include, for example, a storage medium on which the above described program is stored.
It should be noted that the overview of this invention does not enumerate all the features necessary for the invention, and sub-combinations of the features can also constitute the present invention.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method, a system and a program product for delivering on-target messages needed for a user, without omissions.